Meet Mark Best and Shane Osborn – two Australian-born chefs who have scaled the heights of fine dining and proved remarkably agile, having made 180-degree turns in their decades-long careers.

Best, 54, closed his three-hatted bricks-and-mortar Surry Hills restaurant Marque in 2016 to take on consultancy work, and Osborn, 49, closed his two-Michelin-starred restaurant Pied a Terre in London to move to Hong Kong, initially to open St Betty for restaurateur Alan Yau.

He now owns one-Michelin-starred modern European restaurant Arcane and neighbourhood bistro Cornerstone, both in Central Hong Kong, while Best juggles hotel and cruise line consultancy work with a culinary ambassadorship for AEG and his own photographic work. In 2019, their "bromance" blossomed as they represented Australia in Netflix’s multimillion-dollar international cooking competition, The Final Table.

Chefs Mark Best and Shane Osborn. Louie Douvis

We asked each chef to interview the other, to review the pivotal moments in their own careers and to try to predict the future of hospitality in these rapidly changing times.

Mark Best: From the time you first started in London in 1991, what would you say has been the biggest cultural change in the industry – apart from the obvious current one?

Shane Osborn: When I arrived, kitchen culture was often compared to military outfits such as the SAS. Many kitchens were run with an iron rod. Intimidation, aggression and at times violent behaviour seemed normal if you wanted to cook and prosper at the highest level. This behaviour is no longer accepted in our industry, but there is still a long way to go for kitchens to be automatic equal-opportunity, respectful work places.

Shane Osborn in 2009 when he was working at Pied à Terre in London. At the time, he was the only Australian to ever have two Michelin stars. Penny Stephens

Best: You were the first Australian chef to achieve one, and then two, Michelin stars with your restaurant Pied à Terre in London. What did that mean to you personally and did you have any idea what that meant to young Australian cooks?

Osborn: On the journey from winning one to two stars I found very it difficult to attract chefs to work with me, as no one expected an Aussie in London to cook at that level. Once the second star was awarded, that changed instantly.

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I was so focused on maintaining the standards and stars we’d achieved, I had no idea what effect it might have on my fellow chefs in Australia. This is the amazing, yet poisoned, chalice of Michelin status.

Best: 2019 was a tough year for restaurants in Hong Kong, and now 2020 has doubled down with COVID-19. How do you prepare your business for resilience during these times?

Osborn: Hong Kong has been through a very difficult nine months. The protests of 2019 have had a severe and lasting effect, and now, watching the global world of small and family-run businesses shut down without any idea of what the future holds, is heartbreaking.

Shane Osborn's Arcane restaurant in Hong Kong. Getty

My first priority in Arcane is to reassure our staff that I will take all steps needed to protect their jobs. We haven’t laid off any staff, even though business is the hardest I’ve ever known. It's vital that we as a restaurant radiate confidence and positivity to our guests, and this can only be achieved if the staff are happy and feel safe.

But now, I have a question for you.

Best: Shoot.

"Slightly Marxist politics": before he was a chef, Mark Best was an industrial electrician in mines and shipyards. Louie Douvis

Osborn: From owning and running one of the world’s best restaurants to being a consultant celebrity chef, how has the change from employer to employee been?

Best: I started work in the WA [West Australian] mines and then in shipyards, as an industrial electrician. That and my working class country background would explain my slightly Marxist politics and why I wasn’t the best employee.

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I think, however, that made me a good employer, running my business like some sort of vaguely autonomous collective. I liked to make people think for themselves and realise their ideas without being spoon-fed. If I ever did become frustrated or angry, it was when my employees chose not to live up to their potential.

Osborn: The issue of "wage theft" or staff underpayment seems to be a hot topic in Australia. What needs to change?

Best: The restaurant industry has been in trouble for a long time, and has only been kept afloat financially because of the enormous amount of personal investment from the small stakeholders.

Mark Best's Marque restaurant in Surry Hills . Christopher Pearce

It’s an industry-wide problem, whether caused by lack of knowledge or wilful ignorance. The larger group operations were never a salve nor a solution. They are merely a symptom of the poor financial model that we find ourselves in. Consolidation of this type only hides the underlying issues of profitability without solving them.

Osborn: How will the hospitality industry change over the next 12 months, with all that is happening around us?

Best: There is no way to soft-soap this. We are in Armageddon. Leading New York chef Tom Colicchio predicts that 75 per cent of restaurants in the USA won’t survive the crisis, and I don't think we will do much better. It is going to be a long time before we get out of this.

Best at his restaurant Marque in 2015, prior to selling. Christopher Pearce

The industry has been under extreme pressure for a long time through over-supply, rising costs of goods and labour, and over-regulation. We have been in a financial bubble, propped up by low interest rates and the savings of people wanting to get into the industry.

I credit myself with Nostradamus-level foresight in selling my restaurant in 2016 but even then, I think I was two years too late.

Osborn: Let’s end on a brighter note. Can you give us one possible scenario or upside or aspect of that change that we can look forward to?

Best: The industry will rise again, Phoenix-like, from the ashes, but many of the known players will no longer be part of it. The current industry model is broken and there has to be a fundamental change before the conditions will be right for people to rebuild again.

When they do, I think it will be better and more interesting. We are an incredibly resourceful industry, and I rely on the talent and pragmatic genius of our kind to find a way forward.

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Jill DupleixFood writerJill Dupleix is one of Australia's best known food writers, and is a long-time restaurant reviewer, reporter and recipe columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Jill was the food editor of The Times in London for six years, and is the author of 16 cookbooks.

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